THE COMMON INDIAN TOAD 365 



is laid open and discloses its frothy contents, alive 

 with pallid, wriggling creatures, is truly gruesome. 

 Every evening during the rainy season all the 

 lawns are thickly dotted over by multitudes of 

 common toads, Bufo melanostictus, with brightly 

 lustrous eyes and curiously mottled and tuberculate 

 skins (Plate XXI.). When the weather becomes 

 drier they cease to come out in such numbers, and, 

 during the prolonged drought of winter and spring, 

 very few venture to leave their retreats among the 

 dead leaves in shaded coverts, or in the cavernous 

 recesses beneath culverts and the basements of 

 buildings. Individual specimens vary in colour very 

 greatly, and both temporarily and permanently. At 

 the time of their greatest activity some of them 

 are deeply coloured with velvety black tubercles 

 standing out on a background of rich brown, 

 whilst a whole series of lighter varieties range 

 through different shades of brown and ochre to 

 culminate in specimens of such pale cream-colour 

 as to seem almost white in the dusk. When they 

 come out suddenly from their shaded diurnal 

 retreats into strong light they show changes in 

 tint parallel to those taking place in wall-geckos in 

 like circumstances; and, when they have remained 

 for a long time hidden away during continuous 

 periods of dry weather, they acquire a specially 

 dingy, dusky hue of a more persistent character, 

 which is accompanied by a shrivelled and dusty 



